Favorite Teams

Tiny puppets will be on parade for Portland's inaugural Tiny Puppet Theater Festival. Anna Cosper, who made these puppets for traveling performance "The Good Folk Show," is one of Portland's featured puppeteers.
(Anna Cosper)

Everything will be small at the inaugural Tiny Puppet Theater Festival, except for the breadth of it all: Organizers are planning 20 shows over three weekends in Portland, featuring seven different puppeteers in one tiny art gallery.

That gallery, where the festival will all take place, is good: a gallery off N. Mississippi Ave. The festival itself is run by Portland puppet-based events company Beady Little Eyes, who has been in search of puppet shows that are big in heart, but small in stature.

The festival doesn't strictly stick to local puppeteers, but most featured artists appear to be from Portland or elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, making the Tiny Puppet Theater Festival essentially a local event.

You can buy $5 tickets to individual performances, but with all-festival passes offered at a measly $15, you might as well check out a few different shows.

The shows, as well as the opening night parade, are all ages, and organizers encourage people to bring puppets of their own. The shows might be tiny, but the inaugural festival is going to be a big deal.